


Recreating Memories

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, hunting Hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 09:56:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5662069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wasn't the Natalia she used to be years ago. None of them were the same, and there was no way to reclaim who they used to be. The only thing they could do was try to move forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recreating Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [panicsdownpour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicsdownpour/gifts).



> Russian was obtained online, so correct me if it's wrong and I'll fix it. Hover over it for the translation into English. 
> 
>  
> 
> Written for [drivingdeanwinchester](http://drivingdeanwinchester.tumblr.com) as part of the [FYeah Bucky Natasha Secret Santa 2015](http://fuckyeahbuckynatasha.tumblr.com/) gift exchange. The prompt I figured I could do most justice to is "It's their first New Years together, but instead of partying it up, their icing their bruises and patching each other up after some crime fighting." Hope you like it! :)

_Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it._  
― L.M. Montgomery, "The Story Girl"

 

Once the dust settled, government bureaucracies were mostly appeased, and pending disasters were dealt with, Bucky Barnes settled into a quiet suite in Avengers Tower. He didn't say much, attended group meals, helped out with whatever needed to be done, and talked quietly with Steve and Sam. He avoided Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff with equal intensity, and was generally indifferent to the others in the tower. Tony seemed more than happy to leave him alone and not go near him. "You can keep your creepy brainwashed assassin best friend," Tony had told Steve, his voice a mixture of snark and strain. "Just know there are things he will never get into in this tower, and that I don't want to regret this."

"You won't," Steve had promised earnestly. Bucky had simply remained next to him, face impassive as he nodded solemnly.

"Creepy," Tony had declared, then left for his own floor.

Natasha hadn't usually been in common areas, but she started frequenting them. If Bucky was around, she was surreptitiously watching him. He tended to avoid looking at her, but no matter where he went to avoid her, soon she was there as well.

"Stop showing up," he finally growled at her.

"Stop avoiding me."

"I _should_ avoid you."

"Why is that?"

"I remember you."

"I remember you, too," Natasha told him evenly, crossing her arms over her ample chest and leveling a direct look at him. "Before Odessa. _I remember you."_

Stricken, Bucky fled.

***

"What's going on with you and Bucky?" Steve asked Natasha as they walked to the gym to spar.

"What do you mean? I haven't seen him in weeks."

"I know," Steve admitted. "He said he upset you, and didn't want to ruin our friendship."

Natasha stopped and frowned at him. "How could his upsetting me ruin your friendship?"

"So he did upset you." Steve looked unhappy at that, and she had to stop that train of thought before it went too far.

"He didn't," Natasha said, rolling her eyes impatiently. "Not really, anyway."

"Not really?"

"He shot me twice in the past few years," she told him in a deadpan voice. "Without killing me, so that's a plus, but it still hurt."

Now Steve frowned at her. "You're reacting to that awfully well."

"I'm fully aware that if I was his target, I wouldn't be here talking with you."

"I get the sense that there's something else to it."

"Don't you know, Steve? I blew all my covers. I released everything." There was a slightly bitter edge to her voice; she didn't resent having to do it, because it was necessary and she had understood the need to display everything, but it had left her out of sorts and feeling adrift for the longest time. Had she stayed with the Avengers after the fall of SHIELD simply because there was nowhere else to go?

"I didn't read it," Steve told her quietly. He gave her an earnest look. "And I think there's a lot about you that SHIELD never knew." 

Natasha met his gaze and touched his arm gently. "Maybe." Steve's head reared back for a moment, and she sighed deeply, hoping he wasn't angry with that unpleasant truth. "There are things never written down that are still truths, and a lot of things were done to me and to my mind. I don't mention it to you not because I don't trust you, but because sometimes I don't know if they're true."

His expression softened; apparently he had thought she was going to lie. That hurt; he was one of the few people she trusted implicitly. Even Nick Fury had hurt her with his distrust, and she avoided thinking of him as much as possible.

"I'm sorry, Natasha," he murmured softly. "So you know what Bucky's been through."

"Yes. Similar technology was used for the program I was in." She didn't even want to say the name Red Room if she could avoid it, as if saying the name would resurrect them from the ashes she had left them in.

"Can you talk to him about it? I don't know how to talk about that."

"He's avoiding me."

"If you find him, maybe you can help draw him out. Sometimes he shuts down on me, too. When he does that, I talk about Brooklyn before the war and what it looks like now..."

Natasha sighed. "He probably thinks you want him to be that Bucky. None of us want him to be the Winter Soldier anymore, and he knows that."

"So?" Steve said, frown still marring his features. "I just want him to recover from what Hydra did to him. I don't care if he remembers it all or not. He remembers some of it, and that's enough for me."

"He's something in between now," Natasha told him in a low tone. "Maybe he thinks you're trying to force him to be who he used to be."

"That would explain why he shuts down with me," Steve agreed with a sigh. "But you? You didn't accuse him of anything."

"No, I didn't. I just told him I remembered him. So he's probably ashamed."

Steve sighed again. "I wish I knew what to do."

"I think we all do," Natasha murmured, pulling him in for a hug. "I'm sorry he's not the Bucky you remember."

"It's all right. I'm not the Steve he remembers, either."

And she wasn't the Natalia she used to be years ago. None of them were the same, and there was no way to reclaim who they used to be.

The only thing they could do was try to move forward.

***

In the end, Natasha cheated. Jarvis helped her track down Bucky in the tower, and she all but invaded the room before he could escape. His facial expression was that of an impassive mask, but there was a combination of curiosity and dread in his eyes. It looked a lot like the expression he had before he'd fled weeks ago.

"Off your ass, Barnes," she said briskly. "We need another marksman."

"I don't do that anymore," he said tightly, curiosity fading. Now it was replaced by anger, and his lips tightened. "That's not who I am."

"Not to kill, idiot," she said in irritation. "I said _marksman._ Clint's our main shooter, but he needs a second as backup to confuse the target."

Bucky's lips compressed tightly. "I won't kill anyone."

"I'm not asking you to. Being a marksman means you _won't_ kill anyone. We need them in alive," she said quietly. "We think we found some Hydra holdouts. You should be there to help take them in."

If anything, his expression flattened out to utter blankness. "No thanks."

"трус," she hissed. "You hide from the present as well as the past." The gaze she leveled at him was stern. "Keep doing that, and you won't have a future."

"Я не заслуживаю его," he replied.

"Yes, you do." Natasha's expression softened slightly. "They tried to take your humanity from you, but you never lost it. Not completely."

"I almost killed you. I almost killed Steve."

"But you didn't."

"All the thousands that I _did_ kill—"

"Mercifully. Quickly. Usually quickly," she amended quietly. "And never more than what the instructions told you to do." At his startled expression, she shrugged. "I went over the past files I got for Steve. And the debriefings more recently. You didn't kill us, Barnes. You broke your programming, you bent the rules where you could. Enough of you was left that they couldn't scrape out, no matter how hard they tried."

His jaw worked slowly as he turned over her words in his mind. "You sound like you can forgive me for it all."

"It wasn't you. Like a lot of my past wasn't really my own." Her smile was mirthless and didn't reach her eyes. "I still make up for it every day, and so can you."

"I'm not sure if I can."

"I am," Natasha told him firmly. "So c'mon. We need another marksman."

He let out a slow breath. "You trust me with a sniper rifle?"

"You don't miss," she said quietly. "You always hit what you intend to hit."

His eyes strayed to her shoulder, to her hip. "I'm sorry."

Her lips flattened and she nodded sharply. "Yeah. Let's go."

As she turned, he caught her arm. "You said you remember," he began hesitantly. She nodded sharply, and he let out a breath. "They weren't just playing with me, then? They weren't just dreams to torment me?"

Natasha's expression softened, and she reached up to cup his cheek. "No, it wasn't." Now her smile was sad. "Oh, Милая моя, what am I going to do with you?" she asked softly.

Bucky froze for a split second, eyes widening fractionally. "How much do you remember?"

"I remember everything," she murmured. "I've had their work untangled. You?"

His lips stretched into a grimace of a smile. "Too much. Some of it, I wish I never remembered."

"But me? Us?"

"I remember some of it. And you were the best part of everything."

She smirked a little and then pulled away, beckoning him to follow her. "C'mon, then. Let's go see what else you remember."

***

It was easy to gear up and shoot at targets. Hunting Hydra agents and destroying their strongholds was surprisingly therapeutic. Bucky didn't lose sight of himself as they moved throughout Europe, though it was easy to see him fall into the same behavioral patterns that the Winter Soldier had used. He even joked around with Clint, Steve and Sam a bit, though it was strained at times. He was clearly trying to be the Bucky that Steve remembered, though Steve never once pulled away when Bucky referenced something painful about his time working as the Winter Soldier.

Natasha wondered about that, but stopped short when she overheard the two talking on a rooftop in Belgrade. "—not the same."

"I know, Buck," Steve said. He was clearly tired, almost wistful, and that halted Natasha before she could interrupt and call them back down to the rooms they were staying in. "But I don't expect that, you know. None of us are the same people we used to be. And I'm not saying you should be, either. There's things they had you do that maybe you remember, maybe you don't. I'm not asking you to tell me."

"Then what're you askin' me to do?" Bucky asked in an aggrieved tone, the old Brooklyn cant to his voice creeping through. He was weary as well, and Natasha could imagine the defeated slump to his shoulders. "I'm hitting every target. I'm telling you what I remember that can make 'em go down faster."

"But that's not what I asked you. I asked if _you're_ okay. If you feel all right doing this, or if it's bringing back bad things." Steve's voice was soft and careful. "It's not weakness if you can't handle it. You haven't even settled into anything before taking off to do this."

"You took off for me the second you found out where I was."

"But I had time to get used to living in this body. I figured out some of what it could do by then, and we worked on the rest of it," Steve murmured patiently. "Have you? Figured out the arm and the balance and how it all fits together?"

"I'm still a crack shot, aren't I?" Bucky retorted.

"It's not all about the guns," Steve replied. His voice was heavy with pain. "We're not weapons. We won't be used." There was steel beneath his tone that Natasha hadn't heard too often before. "I want to know that _you_ are okay with this. That this is what _you_ want to do. Not because you feel like you have to, not because you feel like you owe us. _Because you want to._ You've got a choice, Bucky. And it doesn't feel like you're making it. It feels like you're letting me make it."

Bucky was silent for a long time. "I want 'em hurt. You always said you hated bullies, right?" There was a pause, and it was easy to imagine Steve nodding earnestly. He did everything earnestly, and he cared far too much about his friends. "They're bullies. They need to be taken down with everything we got."

"At what cost?"

"We died once in the war," Bucky said heavily. "Wasn't worth shit, was it? I've got to make it better. I've got to undo what they made me do."

"Talk to Natasha at all?"

"Some. Why?"

Natasha wanted to laugh at Bucky's suspicious tone as much as she was curious about Steve's turn in the conversation. She waited for his response, a smile on her lips.

"She's the same, you know. Forced to do things against her will, feeling she has to make up for it, even if she's already done so a thousand times over. And that's just the stuff I know about. I'm sure there's a lot more I don't."

"Steve—"

"No, hear me out. I don't know what you're going through, what you might be remembering. I don't, and you probably don't want me to."

"Damn right."

"But she'd understand. She's as honest as she knows how to be, and she's good. Not in the same way Ma was. But there's a ruthless and selfless side to it, and she can help you through this. She's done it, Bucky. And if she can navigate through the shit they put her through, she can help you through yours when I can't. Just let her in."

Bucky blew out a breath. "You don't understand..."

"So make me."

"You don't get it, Steve," Bucky hissed. He cut off whatever Steve was about to say. "No, I remember things. _I remember._ Not just the thirties, but what they had me do. I was aware for some of it. I was in control. They twisted it, corrupted the mission. Confused me. And she was there for some of it, okay? I remember her, too, how much I loved her once, how much I tried to sacrifice to keep her safe. And it was for nothing, because they wiped it all out, and I was frozen again, and she was yanked right back in where they had her."

His voice dropped so low that Natasha had to strain to hear him. "I remember that it's my fault. I know she remembers some of it, maybe more than I do. But it's my fault she was trapped there so long, and I can't let go of the guilt. Everything I did, everything I didn't do—"

Steve's breath came out in a rush, and there was a dull thudding sound, as if Steve had pulled Bucky into an embrace. "That kind of guilt, I do know about. And I know that she won't blame you for any of it. It was out of your control, out of her control. Whatever happened, we're here now. We can fix it." His voice was choked with emotion and unshed tears. "You can't fix it if no one's there. You can't fix it if they're gone. But she's here, you're here, I'm here. We all got people with us that'll help. Don't you see? That's what this is all about. We're trying to fix all the damage over the past seventy years."

"It can't be done."

"Not if you don't try."

"You're such an idealistic idiot."

"Somebody's got to be. Guess it's my job," Steve replied.

Natasha slowly let out the breath she had been holding, eyes downcast. She crept from the rooftop and headed down to the apartment they'd commandeered. "They're not in their room," she told him, and gave Sam a wide smile when he emerged from the bathroom in nothing but a towel. "Nice," she told him appreciatively, then looked over at Clint. "So why don't you take a turn in hunting them down and telling them we're ready to go over the sat photos we got?"

"I thought you can find anyone?" Clint huffed, rolling his eyes as he stood.

She gave him a soft smile. "When it's the right time."

"And on that enigmatic note," Sam declared, shaking his head, "both of you get out so I can get dressed. As fine as you both are, you're not getting a free show."

"I'll come back with dinner," Natasha quipped.

Sam laughed. "That'll earn you a show for sure."

The friendly smile slipped off of Natasha's face as she left the room and headed into her own. It was painful to feel the old hope and love coupled with wariness and guilt of her own. Everything was such a spiky tangle, a web she didn't think she could extract herself from.

To be honest, she wasn't even sure that she wanted to.

***

The hideout for some of the Hydra agents was well hidden, but in an inconvenient location once they found it. It was in Kalemegdan, the central park area of Belgrade. It once had been a military fortress at the juncture of the Sava and Danube rivers, and aside from the ruins there was a large park, several cafés, tennis and basketball courts, museums and an observatory. Sam had several guidebooks in addition to the map, and was looking at different ways to approach the fortress, where the Hydra agents were more likely hiding. There were far too many tourists and pedestrians in the area to do a shoot out, even with a sniper rifle, and Natasha wanted to curse in Serbian, Russian and English. At her tight expression, Sam shot her an amused glance over the map. "So... Tell me what you think."

She shot him a sour look. "это пиздец," she growled, which made Bucky snort in amusement.

"You guys are the spies," Sam said, looking over at Clint, Natasha and Bucky. He gave Steve a playful shoulder bump. "We're the grunts in this outfit. Lay it out for us."

The real issue with taking down this particular group of agents was the proximity to innocent people. It was likely why the locale was chosen, though the ruins of the fortress also added to the possibility that rooms never found or excavated by restoration teams hadn't done so at Hydra's command. They used all sorts of older buildings; many members of European aristocracy had been cultivated over the years, and their homes often contained hidden passageways, rooms, or tunnels into the surrounding countryside. All of those features made those locations perfect for hidden labs or command posts, and there were far too many similar places in Europe to do a blind search.

"I remember this place," Bucky said, frowning at the map they all stood around. He looked up with a troubled expression as his finger fell on a street name. "The walls of the fortress, how green the grass looked next to the stones... There's a weapons deposit at the Dark Gate, near Karađorđeva Street. I remember that now. Rifles, pistols, ammunition..."

"Might be worth it to stop by, see what's left in the deposit," Steve suggested.

Bucky's lips thinned. "I don't know where the agents would be in the fortress. I didn't need to know before, but it matters now."

"We'll deal with them," Clint told him. "There were restorations done eight years ago, that might be when they worked a few more nooks and crannies into the stonework." He snorted at the stares Sam and Steve shot him. "I might not always play spy, but it doesn't mean I don't know how to when I need to. And I was here when the construction was done, so that's not me trolling the internet or SHIELD databases for random bits of information like _someone_ does," he added in a snarky tone, smirking at Natasha.

"It comes in handy," she told him blandly.

"Weapons caches would need to be easy access," Sam said, looking at the map where Bucky had pointed. "It's more likely going to be tunnels and hidden wall panels, things like that. We may not be able to go in sniping, but you can pick out details like that and watch our backs while we empty out those caches."

"It's a start," Steve told Bucky when he looked displeased by the idea. "We might be chipping away at them a little at a time, but it's going to work."

"You're stubborn enough to _make_ it work," Bucky muttered.

Steve grinned. "Exactly." He sounded entirely too pleased with himself. "Merry Christmas," he added as an afterthought.

Sam and Bucky didn't bother to hide their groans.

***

The weapons cache was exactly where Bucky remembered it, as well as a few communications devices. "Don't touch those," he warned the others. "Don't call any agents that might still be around to hear it."

Once the weapons were retrieved and redistributed, Sam looked at the others with a grave expression. "We can't just take their toys and call it a day. With construction and crumbling walls, my guess is that they hide underground."

"We'd be too conspicuous looking as a group. We should split up," Clint said.

Natasha expected to be paired with Clint, but was surprised when Bucky volunteered to go with them instead of with Steve and Sam. Steve looked pleased by that, and took off in one direction. Clint lofted an eyebrow at Natasha in query, but she shrugged. "Pick another direction," she suggested. "We don't have any ideas where to start anyway."

Before Clint could do so, Bucky took off. "I guess we go that way," he commented wryly.

They moved along the outer walls and gates, making sure to appear like tourists exploring the fortress. Clint saw the lines in the reconstructed areas that didn't match up properly, and gestured for Natasha and Bucky to look at it. Bucky used his left arm to pry it open, and Clint texted Sam and Steve the location. Bucky led the way through the tunnel, followed by Natasha, with Clint in the rear. They had to go single file due to the narrowness of the tunnel. There was no light source ahead of them or around them; Natasha had to lift her cell phone to provide a measure of light. The tunnel sloped downward as they walked, until they were sure they were at least a story or two underground. When the tunnel leveled off to be parallel to the ground, they were probably underneath the park.

Eventually they came to a steel door with a computerized keypad next to it. Bucky immediately went to the keypad and entered a code without thinking.

The door opened into another hallway, this time with doors leading from it.

"I remember," Bucky murmured, proceeding cautiously into the hallway. This one had fluorescent lighting overhead, so Natasha put her phone away. "A briefing. Blood."

"You're making me really wish I had my bow," Clint murmured, readying one of the pistols he had gotten from the weapons cache. Natasha smirked at him and readied her two Glocks. "What? I can do close quarters shooting."

Bucky held up a fist and the other two stopped and fell silent. "The conference room wasn't here. I don't remember where. This is familiar, but... not quite."

"Then let's go say hello," Natasha said, smirking.

Room by room, they explored the hallway, then moved along to another corridor. The offices were all empty, not even a stray post it note left behind. There were no computers or books, no phones or bookcases with materials. "It looks deserted," Clint commented.

"It can't be. Not when the lights are on and it's still active."

"Did they know we were coming?" Natasha asked, tense.

"They couldn't have," Bucky said, shaking his head.

"I think—" Clint began. He snapped his lips shut when the overhead lights shut off. "I think we might be in trouble."

The trio flattened themselves to the walls, waiting for their eyes to adjust. There was no noise, no indication that they were about to be stormed by a troupe of men with night vision goggles. Minutes passed with nothing more than the sound of their light breathing. "Think it's on a timer?" Clint asked after a moment.

"Should have motion detectors, and we were definitely moving," Natasha disagreed.

"I think they're waiting to see what we'll do next."

With no light source at all, even dark adjusted eyes couldn't pick out anything. "I vote to continue," Natasha murmured, holstering one Glock and taking out her cell phone. Pointing the screen away from her, she hit the button to light it up.

It was down the next corridor that the answers came. The other corridors had been cleared out long ago, but this one was in current use. Five armed guards with submachine guns were outside a lab with glassware decanting something lime green into test tubes. It glowed faintly, and the light inside the lab was also dimmed, the only ambient light coming from the ventilation hoods along the walls. The scientists were likely the ones that had shut down the lights because of whatever they were working on; Bucky might not have remembered much, but the sight of the faintly glowing concoction made him growl low in his throat. He remembered _something,_ and launched himself at the guards without warning.

Pocketing her phone, Natasha rushed forward to have his back, and Clint was right behind her. He caught sight of one scientist hitting a panic button. "We're about to have company!"

Natasha followed Bucky when he charged ahead down the hallway toward the incoming armed guards and agents. Clint sprayed the lab with gunfire, mostly to shatter the glassware and interrupt the decanting process. It likely wouldn't stop them for too long, not if their notes were still around somewhere, but it would at least slow them down.

There were shouts, likely from the scientists, but it was easy enough for Natasha to ignore. She was falling into the rhythm of the fight. It was almost like old times, ducking under Bucky's swinging arm to shoot at someone just out of his reach. She reached up and grasped his left shoulder and swung herself up and around, kicking another guard in the face and sending him sprawling into the one behind him. Her kick spun her around Bucky, and as she let go of his shoulder, he held out his right arm. She grasped it, changing the angle of her spin, sending her careening into another guard. She punched him in the face and let go of Bucky's arm, the momentum sending her and the guard into the ground. Natasha tasered him in the chest as Bucky shot at a guard heading toward them.

Getting up, she could see Clint behind them, splashes of the green goop on his clothes. She smirked at him, then took off at a run toward the other guards coming in.

The outpost was better guarded than they had expected, so the green liquid was likely important. Given what they knew about Hydra, Natasha could only guess it was yet another attempt at making a super soldier serum, maybe using splashes of Hulk blood found at various sites that SHIELD hadn't been able to clean up. Or maybe SHIELD techs had done their job and Hydra agents had obtained it that way. It was impossible to know who was a double agent and who had truly been SHIELD now.

Venting her frustration with that on these nameless guards was satisfying. There was the crunch of fists on flesh, the sharp report of gunfire in her ears. Being kicked in the chest or punched didn't matter, and she only grinned maniacally in return for the blows. "Is that the best you've got?" she taunted. It unsettled one guard enough that she could hook her foot behind his and pull, dropping him to the floor. She collapsed down on top of him before he could react, her knee in his solar plexus. The air rushed out of his lungs, and her fists rained down on his face until he was knocked out.

That left her wide open for another to pistol whip her and kick her in the ribs.

Before she could even reach behind her to taser the guard that had attacked her, Natasha saw Bucky knock him down to the ground with a snarl. "помни обо мне?" he spat, stomping on the guard's gut with his boot.

"Are you planning on killing him like that?" Clint asked, surprised.

"Иди на хуй," Bucky snapped at him, irritated. "He hurt Natasha," he said, backing off and punching another guard in the face with his left hand. The guard crumpled, immediately knocked out.

"See, I may not know a lot of Russian," Clint commented mildly, shooting at another guard, "but I know words like _that."_

Natasha snorted and stood up. "I've been hurt worse," she told Bucky, shaking her head. "And I can take care of myself."

His reply was cut off by another wave of guards, and they had to fight again. "You shouldn't have to be," he told her when they were back to back in the hallway. "By yourself," he added when she didn't reply right away. "I don't think it'll be the same," he started hesitantly.

"It can't be," she replied briskly, kicking another guard. "We're different people than who we used to be. And there's no one behind us looking to erase it all."

Bucky growled. "I chose what we had. What I could choose."

Natasha ducked low and punched up, Widow's Bite discharging as she connected. "I know. And I chose you, too." She kicked the guard out of her way but still got knocked back and sliced with a knife; most of the guards had given up on guns and started with knives due to the close quarters combat. They weren't as good as Clint in shooting to disable without killing.

"And if you could choose now?" Bucky asked, throwing one guard into two others.

Clint shot at one remaining guard as Natasha turned around. She wanted to think that her breath caught in her chest because of bruised ribs and aching muscles. There was a look of such hope on Bucky's face, and this really wasn't the place for it.

But then again, would there ever be?

"I _can_ choose now," Natasha replied quietly. "That's the point. All we have now are choices, our own choices, and there's no way to get the past back. If that's what you want, I can't give you that."

Without looking back, she followed Clint further down the hallway.

Bucky remained stonily silent as they cleared out the rest of the base.

***

Steve had a split lip and Sam had a black eye when the five met back up. Circling around to a different area in the park, they had found the other entrance to the underground base, and had caught the Hydra agents and scientists trying to escape. Bruce and Tony could analyze the green liquid that the scientists were working on, and Natasha easily sent over the files she found on the available computers.

"Heading back home soon?" Tony asked, sounding pleased to have work to do.

"What? And ruin our holiday?" Sam joked, shaking his head. "And here I was, enjoying the fine tourist attractions of Belgrade."

"No, really, then," Tony said, shaking his head. "Lemme make you guys some reservations at a five star hotel there. Relax, eat some food, see some sights like real tourists."

"Tony..." Steve began, ready to refuse.

"You guys have been out there for the past five months straight. You even missed Christmas! All your presents are still here, still wrapped and everything. Pepper won't let me unwrap them and she wants to save them in neat little piles for when you get back. So let _me_ give you a belated Christmas present that you obviously need. And besides, you guys need sleep. It looks like you're all sporting a matched set of bags under your eyes."

"I could use some shuteye in a place I know won't be infested with fleas," Clint offered. He grinned at everyone's incredulous stares. "What? They itch and it's annoying. I say we take the hotel rooms, eat some fancy five star food, then pick another place to go hunting."

"Sounds good to me," Bucky said.

That settled Steve's mind. "All right, then. But no publicity, all right? Let's not advertise that we're out here, or we'd put innocent people at risk."

"What do you take me for?" Tony replied, insulted. "No, wait, don't answer that," he said after a fraction of a second, before Steve could even respond. "I'll book the place and text you the reservation number so you can check in. Seriously. Eat, get some rest. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and all that. And thank you."

Natasha hadn't even settled into her room when there was a tentative knock at the door. She had stopped by a convenience store to pick up some supplies to clean and bind her wounds, so she didn't know where the others' rooms were. Though it should have been safe, she had a pistol in her hand and scissors in her pocket as she eased toward the door to see who it was.

Bucky. With a plastic bag from a different convenience store.

She opened the door, a neutral expression on her face as she slid the pistol into the back of her jeans. "Hey."

"Hey."

"I got your room number from Steve," he said when Natasha didn't move. She would have guessed that, or that he might have hacked into the concierge's computer.

"You didn't get a room?" she asked, lips curling a little in the corner.

"Yeah, I did," he replied a little awkwardly. After a beat, he held out the plastic bag. "Thought you might need help with the wounds. Your shoulder and back. If you trust me."

Clint often had done that when they were out in the field, but he had claimed he was going to go right to bed and sleep. Maybe he felt the need to do a little matchmaking, too.

Natasha stepped aside and pulled the door open wider. "You can come in."

Her nonanswer seemed to make Bucky a little edgy. It was force of habit more than anything else; letting him into her room while she was wounded should have been a sign that she did indeed trust him. There were too many different memories, too many pasts, and they were all tangled up and confused. She knew they couldn't simply fall back on the past and restart where they had been years ago when she was a teenager.

But that didn't mean they couldn't start over as something new.

His touch was gentle on her arm when she sat down on the bed. "I could go," he offered.

"I want you to be here," she told him firmly. His stance loosened a bit, and she smiled. "You took what I said the wrong way."

"Did I?" he asked, a thread of hurt in his voice.

"Yes. Who we were is not who we are now. I can't give you that girl. I can't be that Natalia."

He looked at her steadily, then tugged on her sleeve. "You need to get those cuts looked at."

"What about yours?"

"I'm used to it."

"So am I."

"But you don't have to be."

Something in Natasha melted a little at the words, and her expression softened. She reached up and cupped his cheek. "And neither do you, Милая моя."

"Don't know so much about that—"

Natasha pulled on his jacket and he sighed. "Can't have you getting an infection, Barnes."

"I wasn't the important one," he murmured, gaze lingering over her features.

"You were to me," she replied softly, unbuttoning the jacket without breaking eye contact. "I know that was true. If you doubt it, I mean."

"You always were important to me, no matter how much they tried to erase it," Bucky said, dropping the bag of supplies and shrugging out of the jacket. As Natasha suspected, there were cuts and bloody splotches on his clothes that the jacket had hidden. "It's okay," he murmured when she clucked her tongue.

"I'll take care of your wounds, you take care of mine. Deal?"

Though his nod was brisk and professional, his touch was anything but. Natasha could have just pulled away the tattered bits of fabric, but she stripped to the skin and stood in front of him, bare toes digging into the plush carpet. Bucky's eyes dilated at the sight of her body bared. "Check my ribs," she told him. His fingers were light and gentle across her skin, and his breathing hitched a little in his chest.

He froze when she started pulling off his clothes. "I don't—"

"I promise I won't take advantage of you," Natasha interrupted. "Yet," she added, lips curling into a sultry smile. That got him laughing enough to relax and help her take off his clothes.

They really did need to clean wounds and bandage them up. Breaths hissed with peroxide or rubbing alcohol over cuts, and there were few scrapes that were really serious enough to require more attention than they were able to give each other. Nothing needed stitches, and Bucky pressed his lips to a gauze pad he taped over Natasha's back. "прости," he murmured.

"You didn't do it."

He turned her around and pressed his lips to the scar low on her abdomen. "But I did this one. I knew I couldn't kill you, but I didn't know why. The handlers were angry with me for leaving a witness. I remember that."

Natasha ran her fingers through his hair, nails scratching at his scalp lightly. "I understand." She caressed his scalp gently. "They said you were a myth, you know. That there was nothing to find, and I shouldn't look for you. But I did. I looked everywhere the whispers were, everywhere they weren't. I never did find out where they kept you between missions. I'm sorry for that."

Bucky looked up, utter devotion in his eyes. "Natasha..."

"This begins from now. Whatever we remember, whatever we don't... It doesn't have to confuse the present. We begin from when we left the Tower on this hunt. It ends when it doesn't work. No names, no labels, no expectations. This isn't because of what I remember," she assured him, pulling him to his feet. She spread her hands across his bare chest. She leaned forward and kissed his chin. "This isn't because of what you might remember." Another kiss.

"What is it, then?" he asked, voice hoarse with emotion.

"Starting over. Creating new memories. Ones we share, ones we know will never be tampered with." She looked up at him with a soft smile. "This is ours, only ours. If you want it."

His fingers skimmed down her ribs to rest at her waist. "Yeah, I do," Bucky said, voice still rough. "I want it a lot."

"Then show me," she murmured, sliding her own hands around his waist. "Show me how it's going to be from now on."

Bucky's mouth descended over hers, lips parted already. It wasn't as desperate or frenzied as the kisses she remembered, and his touch wasn't so rough. That was perfect; this was new, a fresh perspective on what their relationship could be.

He groaned when she cupped his cock in her hand and teased its length. Her tongue was still in his mouth, and she couldn't help but smile at how familiar yet new the sound of him was. His flesh and blood hand came to rest on her breast, fingers stroking the nipple. Bucky held her close to him with his metal hand cupped around her ass, and Natasha ran the nails of her free hand down his back, tracing his muscles. She was relearning the planes and angles of him, how sensitive his skin was, how hungry for touch he could be.

And she was finding out how hungry for touch _she_ was.

With hands and lips, they explored each others' bodies, gentle caresses alternating with tight grasping to reposition each other. There were no words other than the occasional "Yes, that," or "More," on both their parts, especially once Bucky tipped Natasha onto the bed and spread her legs wide so that he could lap at her folds. He traced her with his tongue before diving inside of her, nose bumping into her clit. When she ached for his lips on her clit, his tongue was there, his metal fingers curling inside her. His flesh and blood hand caressed her calf and thigh, holding her steady when she shook.

Carefully, systematically, he took her apart with his lips and tongue. Once she came, clenching down around his metal fingers, he shifted position to hover over her. It could have been a menacing pose if not for the utter devotion in his eyes, the soft curl of his lips as he smiled at her splayed limbs. He dipped his torso down, fingers still inside her, working her in a steady rhythm as he licked and nipped his way up to her breasts. "Please," she murmured, suddenly not sure what she should call him. Bucky? That was Steve's name for him. The old terms of Comrade or American or Soldier weren't right, and she couldn't use Barnes. That was too impersonal, too cold, too much like the past.

"James," she whimpered. "Please."

Bucky paused, lips hovering over her wet nipple. "Say that again."

"Please."

"No, not that. My name. Say my name again," he said, an almost pleading edge to his voice.

_"James."_

He kissed her then, mouth fused to hers as if he could bleed into her, as if they could melt into each others' bodies and become one. She raked her nails down his chest, down his back, pulled at his ass to shift his cock where she wanted it. He tried to resist her, the cheeky bastard, but then she pushed at his shoulders to tilt him off balance. Bucky fell to the side, and she clambered up over him, straddling him. "You know what I want, James."

"We're both hurt," he began lamely, not looking terribly sorry.

"Not _that_ badly," she replied tartly, reaching between their bodies to take his cock in hand. She stroked him, her palm abrading the tip of his cock until his breath wheezed in his chest and his grip on her thighs fluttered.

 _"James,"_ she repeated, repositioning herself over him. Once she sank down, she would be full to the hilt.  "Помни, я всегда рядом."

Gulping for air, Bucky pulled down on her hips, sheathing his cock fully inside of her. "Good," he growled. "I ain't goin' anywhere anymore."

Natasha smiled tenderly down at him, then started to ride him in earnest, her hands on his shoulders for balance and his hands on her hips. He thrust up into her as she came down, driving his strokes deeper into her. All she could do was gasp and moan, hanging on as the pleasure built up inside of her. She clenched down tight as she approached orgasm, fingers tightening on his shoulders. Neither seemed to really notice that they were layering new bruises over old ones with their tight grips. Bucky was coming, groaning at the sensation as she chased her pleasure for a few more strokes.

Afterward, sticky and sated, they lay sprawled across the bed. One or two bandages had come undone, but the cuts hadn't reopened, at least. She turned to him, a smile on her face as she traced the line of his jaw with a finger. "Я верю в тебя."

"Не забывай обо мне," he murmured, propping himself up one elbow beside her.

"Никогда," Natasha promised with a smile, and pulled him down for another kiss.

The End


End file.
